


Phoenix

by GhostFox



Series: Scattered Light and Drabbles [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, POV Hinata Shouyou, Side Story, brief child abuse mention, main fic spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 23:36:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6097610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostFox/pseuds/GhostFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A side piece for Scattered Light from Hinata's perspective spanning from the end of chapter 14 to the end of chapter 15. Contains major spoilers for the main fic so if you're interested please read that first!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> You show your pain like it really hurts  
> And I can't even start to feel mine  
> Well, I'm standing in place  
> With my head first and I shake, I shake  
> I see your progress stretched out for miles and miles  
> You're laughing out loud  
> At just the thought of being alive, yeah  
> And I was wondering  
> Could I just be you tonight
> 
> \- Matchbox 20

It’s hard to hold a conversation in the dark, for me a least, but Kageyama shines so brightly, and I’ve grown so accustomed to the way his lips move (intimately accustomed), that I’m sure if he spoke to me in complete darkness I’d still understand. His speech is more of a feeling to me than a sound, like the sensation of breath against my neck conveying so much more meaning than the simple exhaling of carbon dioxide. I’ve never felt this close to another person, this _familiar_. Of course there are others I can communicate well with, but it’s not quite the same. My heart doesn’t pick up speed when Natsu enters the room, the reverberation of Kuroo’s laugh doesn’t soothe me, and Kenma’s smile doesn’t erupt with color when it makes a rare appearance. Kageyama is all of those things to me and more. He is a color palette far removed from any spectrum I’ve ever experienced.

The dim lights of the theater auditorium cast long shadows over his face, the soft edges of his hair and nose cast into sharp detail against his skin. It reminds me of the shadow animals I used to shape on the walls for Natsu when she was a baby. The way she giggled is one sound I’ve ever forgotten.

There’s a lull in the conversation, silence lingering in the air between us. Silences used to make me uncomfortable, as if it would cause the people around me to hear what I hear; nothing. But silence with him has never been strained, and I’ve come to realize that true quiet is not something that has ever existed. Even when we aren’t speaking I’m sure he can hear the rush of blood in my veins, and even without a sense of hearing my mind is never at rest. My thoughts are so insistent, and Kageyama is the loudest feeling I know.

“I called it the bird and the sun,” he tells me, his lips cutting through the stillness in the air. My muscles tighten involuntarily, and I’m thankful that he doesn’t turn to look at me. “Yamaguchi asked if it had a name and that’s what I said. I think it fits alarmingly well.”

I swallow hard, thinking back to the story I’ve heard him let twice now like a broken record. I feel guilty, knowing full well how much it seems to mean to him, but I hate it. His lips always move over the tale with a delicate reverence he rarely lends to anything else, but for some reason it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth like old pennies, sharp and metallic. I just can’t out my finger on it.

He turns to face me, the shadows on his face shifting and an entirely new expression emerging beneath the shapes. “You really like that story, don’t you?” I ask, hoping for an answer I know I won’t get. I want it to just be something he found interesting but not particularly meaningful, but I know that isn’t true.

“I love it,” he answers, a glint in his eyes that clamps hard over my heart. He continues, every movement of his tongue against his teeth digging deeper into my flesh. “I do’t  know how to explain it but it feels like more than a story to me.”

Please stop.

“I don’t really believe in destiny, but I can’t help but feel like it was written for me.”

Oh God.

_“For us.”_

I’m going to vomit.

I’ve never thought it to be a happy story; how does he? The bird is burned alive, scattered to the wind reduced to nothing but ashes of hat he could have been, and in the end he never even got his love despite the suffering he endured.

That’s us? That’s what Kageyama believes so strongly represents what we have? He’s the bird, of course, the self sacrificing and beautifully naive protagonist. So what am I? Am I the sun? Am I going to burn him alive?

It’s sudden, the way I feel everything I’ve held up and away from myself on delicate petals of withering flowers come crashing down. Every dark thought, every viscous ounce of self hatred comes oozing back through my pores, blocking out the light I’ve tried to exude. None of it was real, all just a sham to hide the fact that I am still the same empty child who ruins everything I touch. The person I tried to condition out o myself with positivity and smiles.

“Maybe it was,” I whisper, not sure if the words are even audible. The lights go dim and I’ve never been so thankful for darkness, using it to distance myself from Kageyama. He squeezes my hand but I barely feel it, let alone the kiss he plants on the back of it minutes later when he heads to the stage.

He tries so hard to meet my eyes from across the theater, fighting futilely with the spot lights, illuminated like an angel seeing the world for the first time. I’m grateful, not wanting him to see the silent emptiness in my expression.

He deserves so much better. He deserves a smiling face in the crowd, someone to share in his passion and not just accept the bare skeleton of his creations. He deserves someone who loves him without hurting him. He deserves to fly, not to burn.

And as much as I want to be that for him I realize that I can’t. He believes in us, under all of his false bravado and those deeply hardened eyes that change color with the light, he is still naively hopeful. Kageyama is everything I pretend to be, but for my eyes only.

I can see it when he steps off stage and heads back to me, eyes sparkling with adrenaline and pride, beautifully delicate. I do my best to smile, to keep the fact that everything I thought we could have is crashing and burning behind my eyes while he goes on smiling at me as always like I’m some sort of gift to his life, a flame warming him in the moonlight.

He is so much different than when we met, so strong in the ways he’s learned and grown and overcome the thing keeping him stationary, but he’s still the same person I fell in love with. Still stubborn, still grumpy, still exclusively obsessed in only a few things.

I wonder how he sees me. I’ve shown him the vulnerable parts of myself; the weak parts, but I’ve never shown him the opposite pole. He’s never seen the anger, the darkness I dwelled in for years and worked so hard to overcome and hide. I did rise above it in most respects, but that type of hurt never truly leaves no matter how happy you find yourself.

Would he still love me if I showed him? Or is his fairytale a warning of what will come if I do? I’ve always believed in destiny, in big cosmic warning signs and pushes in the right direction from fated winds of change, so the idea of this prophecy of ruined love and scorched hearts isn’t too hard to swallow.

There’s a tap on my shoulder and I turn to meet Kageyama’s slightly concerned eyes as he pulls to a stop at a red light in the car we borrowed from Daichi. “Hungry?” He signs, probably because I can’t quite bring myself to look him in the eyes.

“Not really,” I answer, the growling in my stomach something much more complicated than hunger. “We can stop if you want.”

“No it’s okay. I think I’m still too nervous to eat,” he replies, chuckling and rubbing the back of his neck in that cute habit of his. “Let’s just take Daichi’s car back and head home.”

The car lurches forward again as the light turns blue, the rumbling of the engine almost therapeutic. Almost, until I notice the silence. A _real_ silence. My mind is numb, my thoughts cold, and for the first time I years I do not hear a single thing.

***

Sleep has never eluded me the way it does that night. Eve Kageyama has commented on how easily I make the transition from awake to asleep in practically no time, but not tonight. Maybe it’s the guilt weighing on my heart for crimes I haven’t even commit yet, maybe it’s the quietly reserved way he kissed me goodnight after I said I wanted to spend the night home alone, or maybe (most likely) it’s the way every moment of time is amplified by the crushing silence closing in around me. It expands in my head like a migraine, pressure building behind my eyes and against my skull, infringing on my space ad rubbing against my skin like cold slimy tendrils. It’s uncomfortable, painful, and unbearably intrusive.

So I don’t sleep; I grab a charcoal pencil and a sketchbook, flipping to the first clean page I find and drawing, willing the porous white surface to absorb the feelings through my fingertips like it has so many times before. I can feel the strokes of the rough black tip against the page but the silence remains, so I try again. And again, and again, and again.

I don’t realize how much time has passed until the sun starts pouring between the drawn blinds over my windows and falls over my unblinking eyelids. The page I now covered corner to corner with scribbled pictures and blank smudges, layers and layers of messy sunflowers, and I realize something; I need to go home.

I search for my phone, finding it finally beneath my thigh and a mess of blankets, and take the coward’s way out.

**To: Kageyama**

**I know this is short notice, but I’m going home for a few days to visit my mom while she’s n town.**

The lie flows from my fingers so easily that it scares me, but I press send anyway and switch to checking the train times. The soonest leaves in half an hour, and even though there are plenty of others lined up I need to be on that one. I’m off the bed in a blur, grabbing a duffel bag from my closet and throwing in whatever clothes are hanging inside, which isn’t many since I haven’t done laundry in far too long. I’m hoping to be gone before Kageyama wakes up, wanting with every ounce of myself to avoid a conversation because I know he’ll see right through my tired eyes and impromptu lies.

A futile hope, apparently, because he’s standing in my doorway when I walk out into the hallway with the almost empty bag in tow.

“Hey,’ he greets me, almost breathless it seems. Fitting, I guess, since I feel as if ll traces of oxygen have been drained from my body.

“Did I wake you?” I ask, dropping the bag to sign and then running my hands through my tangled hair I didn’t even care to brush, resisting the urge to curl my fingers and pull roughly at the knots. I drop my hands with a sigh, restlessly jittery.”I didn’t think you’d be up yet.” _Wished_ , actually.

“Yeah I’ve been up a little while. I came to see you off,” he answers. Of course he did; because he’s perfect and so beautifully clueless. “When does your train leave?”

“Half an hour. The next one isn’t for another four hours. I would have told you earlier if I could, mom just texted me less than an hour ago.” The lies just keep coming, and I’d be worried for where this is going if I didn’t want to get out of here so badly.

“Don’t worry about it. Do you want me to walk you to the station?” No. Not at all. I want you to leave and I want you to stay because you deserve everything good in the world and I can’t give it to you. I turn toward the window so he can’t see the glisten of tears in my eyes.

“Sure.”

He ducks back into his apartment to change clothes and I make my way down the stairwell alone, debating with each step whether or not I should just keep walking, but I don’t. I’d be lying to myself if I said I’m not craving Kageyama’s touch, but my want to spare him from whatever hurt comes along with my love wins out.

I try to smile as he joins me downstairs, taking the bag from my hands and my fingers in his other, but I’m sure it doesn’t look as warm as I’d like. I listen for the usual birdsong in my head that always comes along when he holds my hand, or the flap of butterfly wings travelling up from my stomach, but there is no such sound, just the feeling of concrete under my shoes and guilt on my lips.

He turns to me when we get to the station, and I look just behind him, welcoming the blinding light of the sun instead of the gorgeous smile on his lips that feels like blades between my ribs. “I wish I could come with you.”

I pull my hands away, mostly to reply but also because I don’t deserve the way his skin feels so soft and warm against mine. “You’d probably be bored the whole time,” I tell him, trying to downplay the aching inside of me with happy memories. “Mom’s idea f visiting is sitting at the diner all day discussing business and politics with Uncle Ittetsu. Natsu gets really into it but it bores me to tears. Yachi’s cooking is amazing but even she can’t save me.”

“Sounds like a blast,” he beams, laughing lightly, probably at the thought of Natsu arguing with our mother. I look down at the sidewalk below me, ashamed of myself for everything I feel, everything I’ve done, everything I’ve _yet_ to do. I feel Kageyama’s finger under my chin as he lifts my face to his. “Your ride’s here.”

I smile, trying my best to force a laugh but it comes out as a pitiful whistle. “I guess I should get going,” I sign, taking my bag from his hands and turning to leave, but he pulls me back, wrapping his long arms around me like wings, and I don’t deserve the way it makes me feel. I don’t deserve the electric heat from his lip as he presses them to the top of my head. What I do deserve is when he lets me go, my body already feeling cold without him.

“Tell everyone hi for me. Have a good time, I’ll miss you.” I know you will, but please don’t. Everything would be so much easier if you just forget about me altogether.

“I’ll try,” I whisper, wondering if he hears me, and I have a sudden urge to shout. Either to tell him I’m sorry and I love him more than he could ever know or to push him away in a spectacle I know will be better for him in the end, but I can’t, turning away and counting the steps that take ma farther and farther away.

I don’t look out of the window when I climb aboard because I don’t think I can handle watching his form grow smaller as I speed away, so I just curl up in my seat, shoving my head between my knees and taking deep steadying breaths. It isn’t until I’m halfway there that it dawns on my to text Uncle Ittetsu.

**To: Uncle Ittetsu**

**I’m coming home for a while. Could you pick me up in twenty minutes?**

The response is almost immediate.

**From: Uncle Ittetsu**

**I’ll be there. Good timing, I’m making your favorite breakfast. Have you eaten yet?**

I don’t realize I’m crying until a few drops fall on the screen of my phone, spreading flecks of color through the liquid.

I wipe my sleeve roughly across my face, angry at how weak I’m being, but I just sit there afterwards, lower lip quivering as I try futilely to keep tears from falling again.

I manage to pull it together before the train stops at the station, clearing all signs off of my face before walking out and straight into my Uncle’s open arms. He smells like home, and I wonder if there’s any place I truly belong to anymore.

***

 I let Uncle Ittetsu drag me into the kitchen and sit a bowl of breakfast in front of me, and I do my best to eat it while ignoring the concern in his eyes that try to meet mine across the table. The rice and egg feel foreign in my mouth; I’m sure it’s delicious as always but it’s all I can do to chew and swallow, feeling the food slide down my throat, slowing as it meets all of the self resentment residing there.

“So, Shouyou, what brings you home so suddenly? Is everything okay?” I catch the movements of his hands in my peripheral vision, clumsy in the way he signs over his mug of coffee, and I pretend not to notice.

“All done,” I say, pushing my empty bowl away and doing my best to smile wide enough that he won’t notice it’s like elastic stretched to its breaking point. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Oh, of course,” he replies, eyes wide and confused. Better than knowingly concerned or sympathetic, I guess.

“I’m going to head outside for a while,” I say quickly, and I resent the way my hands falter just a bit. I don’t wait around for a response, standing and turning on my heel, heading through the back door. A pair of my old sneakers still wait for me by the porch steps, yellow and brown paint splattered on the rubber and canvas. Perfect.

This big old ranch house has always seemed like a place beyond the realm of time, and as I pull the box of paints and old brushes from under the porch, untouched and exactly how I left it, that idea jut reinforces itself in my mind. If time can’t reach me here then nothing can. That thought is calming enough to let me exhale for what feels like the first time in ages.

The familiar scent of paint fills my nostrils with a mix of nostalgia and comfort, reinforced by the feeling of the thick wide bristled brush in my palms. The fresh paint looks too bright next to the worn colors next to it, and I realize I haven’t painted on this wall for over ten years. I managed to keep everything together this long just to lose it now, over a folktale and an imagined prophecy. I don’t know what makes me angrier, the fact that I’m stupid enough to let this happen or the way his realization doesn’t even put a dent in how much I believe it to be true.

I stab the brush back into the paint, gritting my teeth as I press it to the wood panels, my strokes almost hostile, the yellow streaks representing every ounce of fear inside me, the brown my anger simmering slowly beneath my skull, the green cold regret pooling inside of my lungs.

I’m panting when I step back, breath hitching in my chest and shoulders heaving. Stretching out in front of me, at the end of a long line of similar brightly colored pieces, is one wilted sunflower. The petals are shriveled and the leaves brittle, on purpose or from the way my hand shook uncontrollably I don’t know, but it’s raw color, raw emotion that bled out through my brush. I’ve done this enough times, stood here staring t the paint I let out of my veins an spread like an open wrist against this wall that it’s therapeutic. This is why I came here. This ritualistic impulse if what I needed to indulge.

My problems are not resolved by any means, but I’ve managed to let some of the pressure out of my head, relieving just a bit of the pain. The space allows for reason, for the ability to think to manifest itself back in my skull. The loss of pressure removes the silence, and my thoughts begin to scream again.

***

Shortly after that I head back inside, sitting down to have a nice conversation with my uncle, and I think he almost buys it. Mostly I want to avoid questions and remove any stress I may cause him, but part of me stays in the living room just to avoid going upstairs. I don’t want to go into my room where the vivid memory of sitting there with Kageyama, remembering the way he held me close on top of the sheets and that first glimpse I got into what it feels like to sleep in his arms so soundly and in our own sphere of existence, and replace it with me stewing in pity. Some things should remain sacred.

We talk about the store, about how Yachi is planning to buy the diner from the owner (an old man who refuses to retire and lives with too many cats), how my mom likes to pop in unannounced for dinner sometimes and how annoyed Natsu gets since it doesn’t give her enough time to call me over to join.

I pay attention and reply when needed, but mostly I just let him ramble on bout all of the things I’ve missed since my last visit (just a few weeks ago), watching as his mug of tea sits forgotten on the table beside his armchair, growing colder as the sun grows warmer on its journey higher and higher in the sky. I’m in a bubble of removed time here, sitting in the ratted old green recliner that matches none of the other furniture but I had insisted on uncle Ittetsu buying from a yard sale when I was twelve. It almost feels like sitting beneath a glass dome underwater, fish and other life swimming along undisturbed above me with no notion of the incredible pressure crashing down on all sides of my refuge, threatening to crack the fragile walls at any moment. And oddly, it’s the most relaxed I’ve felt since Kageyama’s performance.

That is, until Natsu comes home. I don’t even realize the time until Uncle Ittetsu looks behind me into the kitchen and I feel the soft reverberation of her determined footsteps on the floorboards. A blur of orange curls and pink ribbons enter the living room and I reflexively shrink in my seat, thankful of its positions away from the kitchen entrance.

“Where is he?” She asks uncle Ittetsu, and I barely catch the movement of her lips from profile.

“Natsu, calm down,” he answers, but she ignores him, whipping around and catching sight of me, pigtails swinging and falling back softly on her shoulders.

“What’s going on?” Her hands are angry, and I’m not sure how exactly she manages that but she’s very good at it.

“I came home for a few days,” I reply, trying to shrug nonchalantly and brush aside her intensity but failing. When she wants something she becomes he physical embodiment of determination, and I’ve never managed to find something changing her mind but I’d be weary of it if I ever do.

“Yeah? Why?” Her eyes narrow and she drops cross legged onto the floor in front of me, her way of protesting either of our movement until she gets what she wants.

“Because I wanted to see you,” I lie, throwing in a plastic smile that she immediately scoffs at. She knows me probably better than I know myself, and vice versa, so I don’t know why I’m prolonging this.

“Don’t bullshit me, Shouyou,” she bites, abandoning sign language and speaking to me directly. I can’t hear them, but her words slap me anyway, leaving alphabetically shaped welts on my skin.

“Natsu!” Uncle Ittetsu chides from across the room, visible over the top of her head, but she doesn’t apologize. She never does.

“Your paints are outside and there’s a new flower on the wall. I’m not an idiot, Shouyou. Now we’re gonna sit here and you’re going to tell me what’s bothering you or I’m going to call Kageyama and get the sorry from him.” Not only does she never apologize, she never lies, and her burning mahogany eyes betray no intent to do so now.

“No!” I shout, apparently louder than I intended because her eyes blow wide for half a second before narrowing back at me, and Uncle Ittetsu grabs the arm of his chair in surprise. “Don’t,” I add, smaller this time, less forcefully.

Uncle Ittetsu stands, picking up his cold tea and stepping forward to lay a hand on my sister’s shoulder, a scene I’ve seen many times before. He’s always let us resolve our arguments ourselves, knowing that Natsu could fend for herself, and me, being nine years older, would be able to keep her mostly I check. He used to throw in a “play nice, Natsu” or “don’t be too hard on your brother” but now he just smiles wanly, patting her shoulder a few times and sighing before making his way to the kitchen. Fourteen years since we moved in here and almost nothing has changed.

“Shouyou,” she signs, replacing the anger in her expression with a softer sense of inquiry as she grabs my attention back towards her. “What’s going on? Did you two have a fight?”

If only it were that simple, little sister. If only.

I shake my head no, and she cocks hers to the side curiously, the same way I always do, and I feel ashamed to admit what’s really going on. Natsu is a creature of honesty; of asking questions when you have them and laying all your thoughts and desires out on the table to make sure everyone is on the same page. She is not someone who understands avoiding confrontation or hiding from scenarios that haven’t yet happened.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” I answer; the truth.

“Well you have to be sure of _something_. You wouldn’t be upset if it was all one big unknown,” she tells me, and I know she’s right, and I figure if anyone can help me through this it’s her. Brutally honest and perfect.

“I’m scared,” I start, pausing to rethink, “scared” not feeling like the appropriate word. “Worried, more like it. About the future.”

“We’re all worries about the future, big brother. We’re creatures of constant yearning and proactive planning. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

There’s no way for me to explain this without using the bird and the sun analogy and sounding like a lunatic, so I do my best to skirt around it and still get the idea across. “I’m worried about Kageyama, and his future, and how I’ll fit into it.” It’s not everything, but it’s a start.

“Oh he had that big audition, right? Are you thinking  he won’t have time for you anymore if he gets some big fancy pants music career? Because Shouyou,” she starts, launching into one of the one sided tirades she’ famous for, but I top her with a vigorous shake f my head before she can continue.

“No no, not that at all,” I pause, taking a deep breath to steady myself before pouring everything out. “I’m worried he’ll make time for me. I’m worried he’ll hold back and try to bring me along with him. I’m worried that he’ll throw everything he could have from this, because he’s magnificent and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s going places, big wonderful places, just to bring me along. Because not only is he amazingly talented, he’s incredibly stupid when he makes his decisions with his heart and I can’t be the reason he doesn’t accomplish everything he’s meant to do. I love him, but I can’t let him lose his future just because for some reason he happens to love me too.” My words fly frantically from my fingers and I wonder if Natsu kept up or if my movements blur together in my desperate need to push them out and away from myself where they can mingle in the air.

“Wow, that’s heavy,” Natsu breathes, eyebrows raised, and I groan, dropping my head in my hands. She lets me s tike that for a minute before tapping my shoulder so I’ll lift my head and meet her eyes again.

“As I was saying,” she smiles, looking at me as if I’m some overdramatic child. Rich, coming from her. “That’s heavy, and completely ridiculous. You’re freaking out over nothing, big bro.”

“What do you mean?” Nothing? No, this is definitely something.

“I mean that you’re scared about something you can control. Never fear something that you have power over. Kageyama is going places, obviously, we agree about that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t follow him. It’ll be hard for both of you but if you really love each other, and I know you do, you’ll find a way to make it work. I know how much he loves you, I’ve seen it first hand, and it’s almost as much as _I_ love you, so I know he’ll make sure there’s room for you in his future. And your job is to keep him on the right path. This isn’t a one sided thing. You’re both in this together and you have to do your best for yourselves and for each other. It’s a partnership not a companionship.”

This should make me feel better; I know it should because she’s right. She always makes sure of that. But it doesn’t; her words swim around in my mind, slamming slick fingers against the walls of my skull but not managing to grip the bone. They form some sort of crude drumbeat, drilling louder and louder like a migraine, the tremors traveling through my body and making me sick to my stomach. “Natsu stop,” I whisper, not having to look at her to see the shocked confusion on her face.

“What?”

“Stop,” I repeat, the word thick in my throat, and I’m not sure if I can spit any more out so I turn to my hands, meeting her eyes, identical to mine in color alone. “I’m not a child. You can’t just try to fix everything that’s wrong with a few pretty words and expect the problems to go away. The real world doesn’t work like that. Things don’t work out perfectly just because you believe enough that they will; of all people you should know that.” She looks shocked for a moment, stifled by my silent shouting, but the moment passes and I watch as a cold flame erupts behind her tawny irises.

“You may not be a child but you’re sure acting like one.” Her fingers practically spit the words out at me, and I can taste the venom in her movements.

“I’m being realistic for once. I’m tired of pretending. Of hiding behind a positive attitude and waiting for things to play out. I’m tired of letting fate decide things for me. I’m calling the shots now, and my decision is to end things now before they crash and burn.”

“Shouyou, you’re being so stupid! Don’t you dare break up with him without talking about this. Do not break his heart,” she signs, somewhere between a warning and a plea, but my head is pounding and I can barely think. The world is too loud.

“Do you think this is easy for me?” I’m up now, out of the chair and standing on ground that seems to tremble along with each beat of my thoughts. “Break his heart? What about my heart, Natsu? Do you have _any_ idea how much this is already tearing me apart?” My hands are slick with sweat, matching my burning face which might be half caused by unnoticed tears.

“I don’t understand how you can be so selfish. You’re not even considering how Tobio feels about all of this.” I feel as if all of the air has been sucked from my lungs, replaced by dry burning coals and thick smoke that both chokes and stings as it exits my throat.

“Selfish? I haven’t been selfish since the day you were born. I have done _nothing_ but break pieces of myself off and hand them out like free samples to anyone who needed it. Do you have any idea how draining hat is? How taxing it is to belong less and less to yourself with every new person you care about? I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I do know that I am not selfish.”

Her emotions change and melt behind her eyes faster than I can identify them, but I know whatever she settles on won’t be pretty, and I’m too emotionally exhausted to stick around to see it.

I’m out of the living room before my mind can even register the way my feet move cross the carpet. I don’t know if she follows me, or if uncle Ittetsu says something as I pass him through the kitchen on my way to the stairs. I barely even notice the creaking steps as I climb up to my room, every sense overpowered by the deafening thunder in my head, like I can hear every individual blood cell rush through my veins on their way to my throbbing brain.

The door is slammed and I’m on my bed in what feels simultaneously like hours and milliseconds after leaving the argument, good memories be damned. And I’m alone, the sketches pasted on my walls mocking me in the sham feelings I tried to create with paper and graphite.

Those memories aren’t real. Those feelings aren’t real. Love isn’t real and I’m starting to think I might not be either.

There is only one thing I know to be true, tangible in the way it never fades, accompanying me through every second of life, shedding light on reality and honest transgressions.

Pain.

***

I’m exhausted; mentally, physically, emotionally drained, but sleep still doesn’t come. I expect my sleepless night from the evening before to finally catch up with me, but it doesn’t, and I just watch the light of sunset travel over my walls as it fades from yellow to gold, orange to pink, and finally a dull gray moments before the darkness comes. I feel like a candle, burned at both ends until I ran out of wick, leaving me as a slowly drying puddle of wax. The only benefit being the way my head cools after the flame is gone, and I start to regret my own words.

It’s late, but I know Natsu is still up. She’s too much like me, in this respect at least, to be able to sleep on the empty stomach of an unresolved argument.

When I step out into the hallway I and see the ghostly light of the TV in the living room spilling onto the kitchen tiles, but I know without looking that Natsu is not the one asleep in front of some kitchen appliance infomercial.

Her bedroom door is just a few steps down the hall, but it feels like running through sand to get there. I knock, two short raps and three long ones on the heavy wood, our old secret knock, and lay my palm flat to wait for the response that says I can come in. After a few moments my heart sinks, and I turn away, knowing that I deserve this, but my hand lingers, and I feel her response. Three short raps and two long ones, the opposite of mine. I pause for a moment before turning the knob and stepping inside, my head hung low in shame.

She’s sitting on top of her comforter with a school book opened next to her, hair down and spilling over the shoulders of her purple fleece pajamas. I hadn’t noticed how long it’s grown, or how mature she’s started to look, even with little rubber ducks scattered along her pant legs.

The look she gives me is apprehensive with a mix of tern warning to not dare mention the way her eyes are slightly pink and puffy. I don’t, but I do feel like garbage for causing it.

“Sometimes I look at you and I’m surprised to see how much you’ve grown up. I think I still see you as a baby most of the time, and then I go and treat you like some emotional punching bag. You don’t deserve that.” It isn’t a straightforward apology, but it’s a start, and apparently it works as she softens her gaze and pats the bed beside her, shoving the book to the corner.

“Makes sense. I still act like a baby most of the time anyway,” she signs after I take a seat on the edge of the blankets, turning to see her better.

“No, you just tell the truth,” I reply, shrugging off her comment. “You really should’ve been born first, Natsu. You’d make a better older sibling than I do.”

“Nah,” she smirks, shaking her head. “I’d be too mean. You have that gentle caring gene that I’m lacking. I’d just yell at you a lot and probably forget you at the park or something.”

“I might have left you in a park once. You wouldn’t know unless I told you about it,” I shrug, which makes her giggle and slap me on the shoulder. Only then do I know we’re okay, and I allow myself to chuckle along with her.

“So is that what you came in here for? To fess up about your gross misconduct in child care?”

“Mostly, yes. But also to tell you your favorite thing to hear. You were right,” I tell her, and her face that usually lights up at that phrase falls.

“No I wasn’t. I was really unfair to you. I never should have called you selfish, she looks down as she signs, and I have to lift her chin with my fingers to catch her gaze again.

“How about we start this over? We can sit here and argue about who was more wrong all night, and you have school tomorrow.” She rolls her eyes at me and I smile, a real smile, for what feels like the first time in ages. I think my muscles might have forgotten the function.

“Alright alright, so what do you want to talk about?” She looks at me with a new light in her eyes, so willing to listen and help as best she can. I honestly have no idea where I’d be without her.

“I’m not sure exactly. I think I’m going to stay here for a few days to clear my head and calm down,” I tell her, and she nods. “And then I’ll go home and probably try to bring everything up to Kageyama and hope he doesn’t think I’m ridiculous.”

“He won’t. And if he does then call me and I’m going to come fight him because he is the most over dramatic person I’ve met in my life, and that’s including _Bokuto_.” This makes me laugh, harder than I expect, and the air in my lungs feels like liberation.

“Honestly!” Natsu says, trying to move into my line of sight as I double over and fll to my side on top of the blankets. “He’s such a diva. I love him, though.”

“Yeah,” I breathe, working to catch my breath and still beaming. “I do to.”

“So you’re gonna try to work it out?” She asks, looking down at me and smiling yet still managing to look stern.

“Mhmm. Promise,” I sign, letting my hands fall on my chest with a thud afterwards.

“Good. Now get out, I’m going to bed. And get Uncle Ittetsu to come up to his room. I don’t want to fall asleep to the sound of Anthony Sullivan selling blenders for the third night in a row.” I start to giggle again and she pushes me off of the bed, leaning off the edge to kiss the top of my head. I’m not sure exactly how she keeps her balance but I don’t question it.

I roll my way to the door, the wood flooring cold against my skin, and I stop once I bump into the threshold. “G’night, sis,” I call, turning my head back toward where she watches me with a mix of amusement and exasperation.

“Goodnight, Shouyou,” she returns, breaking into a smile that’s vibrancy I can only describe as being like fireworks before crawling under the covers as I stand up to flip the light switch and step outside.

If I were to continue with the idea of destiny and intermixing strings of fate, I’d have to say that Natsu was put in my life to save me. There are the small things, like how she makes me clean or reminds me to eat when I get really caught up in a new project, but then there are the bigger, more substantial aspects. She is, more often than not, y voice of reason, a rock in my life that has never once faltered.

My little sister is the strongest person I know, and when I grow up I want to e just like her.

***

Having a plan and executing a plan are two vastly different animals, and as far as plans go mine is completely halted as I walk into Kageyama’s apartment to find not one but four faces staring back at me. Pizza night. How could I forget?

“Hinata!” Oikawa calls from the chair across the room, and everyone seems to breathe at once, surprise and tension that I’ve barely noticed fading from their faces as they smile and wave hello. Daichi looks red in the face, as if he had been choking, and Suga looks as if my entrance literally saved his life I decide it’s better not to ask and drop onto the floor next to Kageyama.

“Hey,” he greets me, and I can see the hints of a smile at the corners of his lips as he tries to stifle it. “I didn’t know you were coming home today.”

“Sorry,” I reply, turning away from him and grabbing some pizza so I don’t have to look him in the eye while I lie. Why am I still lying? “Forgot to charge my phone so I couldn’t text.”

He looks at me like I’ll disappear any second. Like he needs to drink up every detail possible with his eyes while he has the chance. It makes me feel unreliable. “Did you have a good trip?”

The pizza in my mouth feels like rubber cement, clogging my throat as I try to swallow, but I do my best to smile and pretend everything is okay. The guilt from all the lying is literally eating me alive and that I would like nothing better than to talk to him but in front of his friends doesn’t seem like the proper place. So I try my best no to tell anymore lies, telling him about different amusing things Natsu said and throwing in details about the night before when she got our mom over for dinner. He eats it up, focusing completely on me as his friends have an entirely separate conversation. I catch Oikawa eyeing me with what feels like suspicious interest a few times. I’ve always thought he was more intuitive than he lets on.

I don’t think Kageyama is aware of the amount of emotion he displays on his face, and he wouldn’t be happy if I told him about it, but I’ve always been able to see every feeling cross his features. It’s a blessing and a curse, I realize, watching the excitement flash in his eyes at the little information feed him, or the pieces of his gaze that silently tell me how much he missed me and how happy he is that I’m back. It’s overwhelming.

There’s a sense of togetherness to the atmosphere of the room that I don’t quite belong to. That I don’t quite _deserve_ to belong to. Not yet, anyway.

Right now I have work to do, and sitting here pretending that nothing is wrong is not helping the situation. I am on a precipice, staring down at a pool of conflict resolution, longing to slip from the edge of the rock and into the cooling water below. But now is not the time, and the temptation is more than I can bear.

“I think I should probably head in for the night,” I tell Kageyama, taking the chance to edge the words in during a short lull in the conversation, almost literally parting a sea of words with my fingers. “I’m exhausted.” Another truth. I’m getting better.

I expect his face to fall, but the smile he gives me, with disappointment practically screaming like a prisoner slamming it’s fists against the bars keeping it hidden, is so much worse. I quickly bid everyone goodnight before practically running from the room and making my way to my own apartment, only daring to breathe once the door is shut behind me. You would think I just escaped life threatening danger from the way I pant, but the friendly room was anything but. At least for someone who doesn’t have the weight of unspoken apologies sitting on their lungs and restricting air flow.

After spending a few days at the ranch house, almost removed from the rest of the world and elements like proximity and time, being back home feels like reentering a world where the metaphorical storm of my stress all unfroze from its dormant position at once to slam into me with full force.

I made a promise, though. Not just to Natsu but to myself, and also on some other level to Kageyama, so I wait. I put my bag away and take a seat in the living room with a  sketchbook to occupy my wandering mind and wait for him to come over, figuring he’ll want to pop in after everyone leaves. I wait, even after I know that he’s gone to bed and I won’t get to tell him anything tonight. I wait, dozing on the couch every so often and filling too many pages with mindless doodles, until well into the afternoon. The time allows me to truly calm down, and I am so ready to tackle this challenge I agreed to.

He’s panting when he finally steps into my apartment, catching me off guard, but I’m not worried any more. Tired? Yes. A bit delusional? Probably. But calm.

“Hey,” I say, trying to make my face appear less surprised but probably just making it worse. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he answers, looking like he just ran a half mile. I can see the way his lips move as he forces his words out. Awkward and unsure. “Uh, are you?”

I set down my charcoal so I can sign, saying the only think I can think of to keep the conversation going. “Of course. You look…sweaty.”

“I might have kind of…run here,” he tells me, as I suspected. I watch as he searches my face with his eyes, looking for what I don’t know. My fingertips itch to start this conversation I’ve been waiting to have, but in the face of the beast I have no idea how to start, and he beats me to the punch.

“I have something to tell you.”

Okay. That’s fine. We can do that first, no problem. I’m almost thankful for the extra time to think, but as I nod and set my sketchbook down I regret not speaking first. I turn on the couch, sitting how we always do, and pat the seat beside me. He waits a few moments before taking his place across from me, and when I smile at him it feels genuine. “So what’s up?”

He breaks into a smile as he starts to speak, and I can’t help but feel excited to hear what he has to say, even before the words start to spill from his mouth.

“Yamaguchi stopped by the rec center today. First of all he wasn’t wearing a suit and it was kind of weird. Also he had a ponytail. I think you’d look good in a ponytail. You should try it sometime.” I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him this happy, getting distracted as he speaks like a child has too much to share about their day. It’s adorable and I can’t help but laugh, motioning for him to continue on t the actual point of the story.

“Sorry, I’m just excited.” Don’t be sorry. Never be sorry. “Anyway, he said he wanted to talk to me about the audition and everything, and then he offered me a job.”

I’m not sure what a heart attack feels like, never having had one, but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the white hot somersaults my heart stats doing in my hest as I hop up cheeks feeling as if they’re going to tear if I smile any wider.

“That’s amazing!” I sign, wondering briefly if he can read it while I hop up and down on the couch and then  realizing that I don’t care because I’m just so happy.

“What did you say? When will you start? What will you do?”

I have so many more questions to ask but Kageyama reaches out and grabs my hands in his, and I try my best to calm down and sit still on the cushions.

“I didn’t. I told him I wanted to talk to you first.”

I don’t even give him a chance to finish that thought, pulling my hands free to interject. “You’ve worked so hard for this. You have to take it.” Its somewhere in the middle of this sentence that I realize that time has caught up to me quicker than I thought it would. That everything I was afraid of is unfolding before my eyes before I could do my part to prepare for it.

“I know I should. It makes sense to, definitely, but I think I’m going to turn him down.” No. Stop.  “I don’t think I want to work for a big company. I mean, I thought I did, I though any job that let me write what I wanted and create on my own would be fine, but now I’m not so sure.” This is it again, that feeling of words and regrets and fears gathering together in my throat and making me sick.

“What do you mean?” I’m crumbling. I could fall apart at any second, splintering at my shoddily pasted together seams and I hug my knees to keep the stuffing inside.

He continues, his words gaining momentum as they flow from his mouth, but his eyes taking care to watch me, unsure of what they’re seeing. “Because if I take a job like this it’s a journey I’ll go on alone. It’s a path that you can’t follow me down, and I don’t want that at all. I want you to be a part of everything I do for the rest of my life.” This is what I was afraid of. This is exactly what I told Natsu would happen, but it hurts so much more than I expected. It’s a feeling of helplessness, that I have no control over anything that is happening around me. I don’t even have control over myself; my mind screaming the words I want to say to him to try and salvage the situation but my mouth forming something completely different. “Kageyama, you can’t.”

“It’s okay. This is what I want. I’ve finally figured it out. It’s you. I want you. And as long as I have that everything else will fall into place.” I know that what he’s saying should feel good, that I should feel warm and giddy like I did the first time he said he loved me, because he’s essentially saying that again except with more meaning, but I don’t. My gut is cold, my heart frozen mid beat, and my mind racing to keep me from crumbling apart. He notices my tears at about the same moment I do.

“What’s wrong?” Nothing. Everything. The fact that I believe the stars converged to bring us together her in this plane of existence at the same time and I let I all disintegrate right before my eyes. It’s too much; too much to take in, too much to feel, and he only thing I can do is drop my head into y hands and sob, whispering messy words to myself that I can’t hear. My mind is nothing but regrets manifested over and over, drowning out the birdsong.

His hands are on mine, uncovering my face, and I takes willpower not to shy from his touch. “Talk to me,” he pleads, eyes wide with too many emotions for me to read. Confusion, fear, heartbreak. I shake m head; I don’t want to ass anything worse to the mix. I want this to be over. “Baby, please.”

That hurts. I can feel every syllable like a wound on my skin, digging and carving at the exposed weakness below. It is so much worse than anything my dad could ever do to me. He loves me, _still_ loves me, and I am ruining his life.  

“It’s me,” I tell him, pulling my hands away from his and wiping at my face in between words. “This is my fault. You’re throwing away your dreams because of me.” This is not how I wanted this conversation to go, but there it is. My fears out in the open, laid out like a patient on a table for him to dissect.

“No. no not at all,” he replies, and I watch as the blue of his eyes turns just a bit lighter, losing depth as I hurt him. He reaches for me and this time I can’t stop it, jumping up and moving away from him across the room, glad to have m back to him so I can’t see his expression.

It gives me a moment to think, and a moment is all it takes before the question that started this all returns to my mind, tearing at the walls of my brain with bloody tattered fingertips to claw its way out. One brick, two bricks pulled out of the wall keeping it contained and it all comes crashing down, crawling free of the rubble as the dust settles and I whip back around, yelling as loud as I can with my hands. “Am I the sun?”

“What?”

“The sun. In your story. Is that me?” Word vomit. Better than regular vomit.

“Of course,” he answers, confident and clear, as if it’s the only thing he knows for a fact in the entire universe.

My legs shake underneath me and I feel lightheaded for a moment, dropping down to squat on the floor. The regret starts up again, accompanied by anger, at myself, and pain, fear and helplessness screaming louder than anything I’ve ever felt, and I clamp m palms over my ears to block the sound. It doesn’t help; the sound is internal, and I have no escape. The only way to get away from it is to speak, distracting my mind and digging the whole deeper.

“It _is_ my fault,” I sign, finding Kageyama standing when I look up. “You’re the bird and I’m the sun. I’m burning your dreams alive.” I smile, devoid of any rational thought, and I have to stop myself from laughing. It’s almost funny, the way everything comes together just to fall apart, like toys in some sick cosmic dollhouse.

 “Is that what you think? Is that what’s been bothering you?  You think you’re going to ruin my life?” He’s almost amused, not quite seeing the situation the same way I do.

“You said it yourself,” I tell him, the emptiness restoring stability to my legs as I stand. “I’m the sun.”

“Yes you are,” he says, but it doesn’t quite hurt this time. The damage is done, the bridges burned, and the ashes left behind are unfeeling. He laughs and I wonder if he’s empty like I am. “But you’ve got it all wrong. You’ve missed the entire point.”

He steps forward, and I barely register the feeling of his palm against my cheeks, or the way he wipes at my tears with his thumbs.

“Being the sun isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t mean you burned my dreams, it means you burned away the parts of me I hated. You turned the life I almost had, sad and empty with no real direction, into something else entirely. Because of you I can be happy,” his voice doesn’t waver; I can see the strength in the set of his jaw. It almost makes me want to believe him. “ Because of you I won’t be alone, I won’t go down the path I was headed when we met, one that would leave me like my father with a million regrets and a funeral party as pathetic as the life I lived when it ended.”

At this point his lip quivers slightly, like he’s overcome with emotion, only reinforcing the strength I see within him. I feel a bit of the ice chip off of my heart. “You made me free, Hinata. The bird was a prisoner, and you, the sun, turned me into the stars in the sky as vast as my love for you.”

Slowly, the ice melts. Slowly, my heart resumes a sluggish beat as the emptiness ebbs, but I still have one concern, and I fist my hand in the front of his shirt as an anchor in the unknown. “But in the end they weren’t truly together.

His response is almost immediate, and I watch as tears form in his eyes as he speaks. “You can’t hear my music, and I can’t truly see your art. We’re about as incompatible as humanly possible, but we make it work. Just like they did.”  He reaches up to flatten my hand over his chest, and I feel his heart beat like the notes of a song in my palm, like I am holding this precious thing he is presenting to me. “Do you feel that? _That’s_ because of you. Without you I would be so lost, so empty, but you’ve given my heart a reason to beat.”

As if on cue my pain thaws away, heart finally continuing its rhythm, the one he granted me, and I pull his hands so they’re against my ribcage now. “Me too,” I whisper, and he kisses me. It’s softer than ever before, like he’s afraid he’ll break me, but I am so sturdy now. I am rebuilt, reborn, like a phoenix from the ashes of what I almost threw away.

I am revitalized, and I need more of him, closer so the feeling of his skin can imprint onto my new pieces. I want him to be part of me, in all respects of the word. I’m too eager, losing my balance and staggering, pressed against his chest as he catches us on the side of the sofa, and I giggle, the first in what I hope to be a series for my brand new lungs.

“You’re too tall,” I tell him, straining to use my hands where they’re pinned between us.

“Maybe you should grow to a normal height,” he smirks, and _god_ did I miss that. I missed this feeling of cohesion and innocence that I stripped away from myself. “Also this kind of feels awful against my back.”

Well, maybe not innocence, I think to myself as another idea wiggles its way into my mind, manifesting quickly and taking over. I lean down to whisper in his ear, “follow me.”

Within seconds I lead him down the hallway, ignoring the pies of clothes and paper on the floor as my primal mind takes over, drinking in the way he feels and tastes, needing to commit it all to memory but failing to capture any moment separate from the whole. What I do absorb is the color.

Black, like a void as my hands get lost in his hair; pulling, tugging, caressing. Yellow, the little bursts of light behind my eyes while his mouth finds every undiscovered corner of my skin. Red when his teeth make contact with thin flesh covered bone.

Blue, the hesitation in hi touch, the care he takes before every move, the permission he repeatedly asks for with his eyes before every change.

Orange and pink mixed in a swirling vortex of feeling and light, showing me what the inside of a flame looks like until the embers cool and it turns to purple, like the sky moments after the sun sets. A palette made by the collision of two hearts on the canvas of life, paint bleeding and mixing like love where it touches.

I lay on top of his chest as the lights outside fade and y mind stat to slow, feeling the spot where I had written ‘I love you’ with my fingertips warm beneath me, the words still as true as when he returned them.

There was so much exchanged through those few letters traced on our skin, but there is still so much left to say, so much I need to apologize for. I cross my arms on his chest, leaning my chin against them as I turn to speak, to tell him how much I messed up and how incredible he is to have fixed the disaster I built.

 “I’m sorry,” I start, but he presses a finger against my lips, stopping my words in their tracks.

“It’s okay now, right?” Yes. Thanks to you. I smile, hoping he can read these things in the way I nod. “Then it’s over.”

My smile widens, and he seems relieved to see it, and to be quite honest I’m relieved to feel it. I could say like this forever, warm and quiet, together here in the purest sense of the word, with nothing left to worry about.

“Can I ask you a question?” I almost miss the movement of his lips, feeling myself floating among the covers, lifted up by pure joy and contentedness.

“Hmm?”

“What color are my eyes?” It surprises me, his question being nowhere near what I was expecting, not that I took time to expect anything. “Blue,” I answer.

“Yeah, I know, but what kind of blue? I’ve never been able to tell,” he continues, looking almost ashamed of his curiosity. I never thought about t before, the fact that he doesn’t know the shade of his own eyes, but seeing as I have always been intimately aware of the colors I see in him I am all too happy to share the knowledge.

“They’re dark,” I tell him, careful in the way I move my hands, wanting to convey the images as clearly as I can but knowing I could never do the real thing justice. “Most blue eyes are light, like the sky, but yours are so deep, almost endless. They remind me of the depths of the sea, mysterious and full of unseen life, or space, vast and incomprehensible.”

He looks at me almost in wonderment, like he never expected an answer like this, so I continue. “They’re like you. I could look into them and find something new to love every day.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he tells me, so much love swimming in his irises like fish in the sea I just described.

“Neither do I.”

My eyes start to droop, the mix of little sleep and the emotional equivalent of running a marathon finally catching up to me, and I close my eyes, using his chest as a pillow as my mind starts to slow its buzz and drift off.

Here’s still a sense of fear in the back of my mind, a wariness of the unknown expanse of time stretched out before us, but it’s a good fear, a soft fear. It’s a fear that will reinforce itself in my mind every second of every day, reminding me that I never want to lose these things that I have been given and worked so hard to keep.

 

 


End file.
